Software practice · 2004
PEP 20: The Zen of Python
Python Enhancement Proposal 20 · Informational · 19 August 2004
- Source
- github.com
- Retrieved
- 26 September 2026
- License
- Public domain
- Rights holder
- Tim Peters, 2004
- Language
- English
This document has been placed in the public domain.
About this edition and its rights
Edition
reStructuredText source of PEP 20 in the python/peps repository. The heading “The Zen of Python” is left out as it repeats the title, and the copyright section is in the footer.
Rights
License notice: “This document has been placed in the public domain.”
Abstract. Long time Pythoneer Tim Peters succinctly channels the BDFL’s guiding principles for Python’s design into 20 aphorisms, only 19 of which have been written down.
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let’s do more of those!